The Special Situation Cast

In the first episode of Season 2 of The Special Situations Cast, I'm interviewing the savvy as well as entertaining master speculator Kuppy of Praetorian Capital. Well known for his Adventures in Capitalism blog as well as his appearances on Real Vision and The Market Huddle.

We talk about St.Joe's, Oil, Crypto, and Kuppy's Event-Driven Monitor which is the source of his many creative ideas. I do a lot of event-driven and special-situation investing myself and I've been impressed by the breadth and uniqueness of the screens included. Quite a few of the screens aren't even available through Bloomberg.  I learn how to use the Fallen Angels and Left-for-Dead screens and some of the more proprietary screens that are part of the service. 

You can find Kuppy on Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/hkuppy

https://adventuresincapitalism.com/

This is part II of my interview with Chris DeMuth Jr, co-founder and hedge fund manager at Rangeley Capital. Chris is also the author of Sifting the World. He writes about SPAC, value, arbitrage, and event-driven top-performing ideas. Although Chris is a highly experienced investor the interview is geared towards the SPAC market. This is currently a major focus of Chris and it shows in this interview. We talk about Churchill Capital IV, Bridgetown Holdings, Pershing Square Holdings, Virgin Galactic, Desktop Metal and other SPACs.

You can find Chris and Sifting The World here:
https://seekingalpha.com/author/chris...​

or on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/ChrisDeMuthJr

This is part I of my interview with Chris DeMuth Jr, co-founder and hedge fund manager at Rangeley Capital. Chris is also the author of Sifting the World. He writes about SPAC, value, arbitrage, and event-driven top-performing ideas. Although Chris is a highly experienced investor the interview is geared towards the SPAC market. This is currently a major focus of Chris and it shows in this interview. I had so much to ask him the interview ran quite long. We talk about Churchill Capital IV, Bridgetown Holdings, Pershing Square Holdings, Virgin Galactic, Desktop Metal and other SPACs I'll post part II of the interview imminently.
You can find Chris and Sifting The World here:
https://seekingalpha.com/author/chris...​
or on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/ChrisDeMuthJr

I'm interviewing Julian Klymochko, host of the Absolute Returns podcast and co-founder CEO of @AccelerateFT. We talk about why he started his firm, how he's approaching SPACs. What are the things he's looking for. The biggest position in the SPAC fund is $CCIV. How do you risk manage that? The
Should you pay $13 for a SPAC with a really great sponsor? What about the John Malone (The Cable Cowboy) related Liberty Media SPAC? $LMACA How are things going with getting allocations pre-IPO?

His firm's website Accelerate | Hedge Fund and Private Equity ETFs

His Twitter: here.

I just interviewed Lily Francus, a Phd student in Bioinformatics, who's quite active on Fintwit. She wrote a paper called Delta Gamma Hedging Impact On S&P 500 Returns. She also co-developed an interesting indicator. Developed for S&P 500 but it likely works on the NASDAQ. Lily explains the general idea in the interview.

Lily also wrote a series of posts about the hedge fund vs Wall Street Bets Gamma war going on in Gamestop (GSE), AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), Blackberry (BB), and others. It was extra informative to talk to Lily about the Gamestop situation and get her input on that.

You can find her here:

https://nope-its-lily.medium.com/​
https://twitter.com/nope_its_lily

I just interviewed Aaron Edelheit; CEO of Mindset Capital, manager of the Mindset Value Fund and author of The Hard Break: The Case for a 24/6 Lifestyle. He started out managing a friend’s portfolio in 1998 above his parent’s garage. He subsequently outperformed 11 years by 800 basis points per year in a former vehicle.  We talk about strategy, Nintendo, U.S. vs Canadian Cannabis investing and a French gaming name.

https://mindsetvalue.substack.com/

https://twitter.com/aaronvalue?lang=en

Interview with Evan Ratner, SPAC Portfolio Manager at Easterly Alternatives. Evan has a background in event-driven and special-situations investments but is currently primarily focused on SPACs. SPACs are special-purpose acquisitions companies and they are the latest investment fad. 

We get into what are the most attractive industries, what kind of SPACs may not be great targets, what kind of SPACs are best targets, and how Evan selects his targets to build a portfolio.

Redball (RBAC) is a SPAC rumored to go after the Red Sox. We briefly talk about Bill Foley who I've wrote about recently in - Foley Trasimene Acquisition II Wants To Dominate U.S. Gaming With Skrill And Neteller (NYSE:BFT), Quantumscape (QS) and its warrants, ex-GM President Barry Angle's Qell Acquisition Corp (QELL), another Richard Branson vehicle called VG Acquisition (VGAC) and Sam Zell's Equity Distribution Acquisition Corp (EQD). Of course, we couldn't ignore Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (PSTH).

Here are some links to articles mentioned:

Bloomberg: Here

Fun Substack: Ratlinks Redux

Evan's Twitter: Here

I just interviewed Corey Hoffstein, Chief Investment Officer and co-founder, of quant shop Newfound Research. Corey has a background in computer science Newfound Research is a quantitative asset management firm based out of Boston, MA. Its first focus is on managing risk and the firm developed a lot of knowledge around the trend-following approach.

Corey recently wrote a very interesting quarterly letter and published a fascinating piece of research called The Liquidity Cascade a while back. 

In the liquidity cascade, Corey dives into the effect of a number of theories about market distortion and concludes these together result in a Lollapalooza effect on the market and S&P 500. These theories include Fed policy, flows into passive, market cash flows, and the effects of hedging needs. 

Ultimately, his research led Corey to think about designing a whole new portfolio framework.

Newfound Research
https://www.thinknewfound.com/

Corey Hoffstein Twitter
https://twitter.com/choffstein

I interview Patrick Finn who is a Maritime Technology Analyst at Thetius. Thetius is focused on analysis and research into emerging maritime technologies.

I'm interested in Scorpio Bulkers which is a maritime company that's selling all of its bulkers and moving into windfarm installation vessels.

Patrick helps me understand the Jones Act and other applicable regulations better. Why is it in place? What is the effect of the jones act on the maritime industry? Could this hamper the development of U.S. offshore wind?  Is it possible to operate in U.S. waters while skirting the Jones Act? 

We talk about the “Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act,” H.R. 4447. For example, congress asked for clarifications of the bill regarding wind vessels. Could this hurt or help the industry?

Near the end, we also get into some of the technologies that could make shipping more efficient, more profitable, and more environmentally friendly.

Relevant links to the discussion:

https://maritime-executive.com/editor...

Patrick Finn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pwfinn/

Thetius

https://thetius.com/

I interview Clearfind co-founder James Layfield to help me better understand the Salesforce and Slack deal. Clearfind is specialized in software management solutions. Clearfind has a database of around 50.000 software products in 800 software categories.

James helps me understand whether Salesforce can go after Microsoft and whether Alphabet or even Facebook are potential rivals. 

I'm curious if the combination can attack new business lines or categories. Can there be revenue synergies? Are there other players that could also want in and potential for a bidding war? Is the merger likely to help Salesforce to expand its foothold in the SMB space? What churn, an important metric in SAAS valuation, can we expect? 

Clearfind
https://home.clearfind.com/

James Layfield
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslayf...